On March 22nd, the Palaeontological Society of China, the most renowned Chinese palaeontological organisation with 88-year history, announced its annual “Top Ten Palaeontological Advances in China” for 2016 for the first time. Five Advances with the leading efforts of NIGPAS researchers were selected, such as:
1) Molecular evidence of keratin and melanosomesin feathers of the Early Cretaceous birdEoconfuciusornis (PAN Yanhong et al., PNAS).
2) Decimetre-scale multicellular eukaryotes from the 1.56-billion-year-old Gaoyuzhuang Formation in North China (ZHU Shixing et al., Nature Communications). This research is also recognised as "2016 Top Ten Geological Advances" announced by the Geological Society of China.
3) Debris-carrying camouflage among diverse lineages of Cretaceous insects (WANG Bo et al., Science Advance) and Extreme morphogenesis and ecological specialization among Cretaceous basal ants (PERRICHOT Vincent et al., Current Biology). Dr. PERRICHOT is now doing postdoc in our institute.
4) Meroblastic cleavage identifies some Ediacaran Doushantuo embryo-like fossils as metazoans (YIN Zongjun et al., Geology).
5) A Jurassic wood providing insights into the earliest step in Ginkgo wood evolution (JIANG Zikun et al., Scientific Reports). Prof. WANG Yongdong from our institute is the corresponding author of this paper.
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